wednesday

Attempts at making sense of too much information. Sitting at a cafe while waiting for a fellow consultant to work together on a project.

Had cinnamon sugar cronut and coffee.  Both very good.

After the meeting I peeked at the secondhand bookstore on the way home and got pulled in and the next thing I knew I have five "new" books. 

For now I just need to survive Wednesday

I bit off more than I can chew when I tried to do two projects simultaneously. I keep kidding myself that I could still do midnight/ all-night work marathons. But I can't anymore. Not only because I am no longer twenty with endless energy but also because it is very clear to me what I want to do and it is not slaving away over a report. What I want to do is write books and make art.

But bills have to paid. And I do have considerable skills when it comes to the work I have to do. And going to London will cost a lot.

So here I am, cramming once again. It is very unfortunate that those so-called energy drinks do not work on me. The only thing with any slight effect to keeping me awake for an extra few hours is the brewed coffee from McDonald's. And that only means I can stay up until about 3AM. Then I start feeling really cranky and nauseous.

On a good note, I figured out a better way of doing my reports which I will use on the next report. For the current report (the one due on Wednesday) I had to restart and re-do everything to save time -- I know that sounds odd but it worked somehow. I am keeping my fingers and toes crossed that I will finish in time and be able to sleep by tomorrow night.

Please send wakeful energies along my way.

Looking back, when this month was just beginning...

I was in a hotel somewhere down south of the country, about to begin fieldwork for a project that I am currently eyeball-deep in and trying to craft a report for.

N Hotel, Kauswagan, Cagayan de Oro City, Philippines

Even then I was already a bit behind with organizing my data. What with my disk drive dying on me and respondents suddenly deciding to be difficult.

Yesterday, in an almost desperate effort to improve the pace of my work I tried out something new. I tried using Scrivener, an app that I use for writing my books, to write my report and to organize my data.

And guess what, it seems to be working! Nothing as dramatic as getting the report done by end of the week but at the very least I can hope for a finished rough draft that I can polish next week (simultaneous with the start of fieldwork for another project). I will write a full separate post on the wonders of Scrivener after it has taken me through the Finish Line for both projects (that would mean a bit of a wait though, like, around July).

Meanwhile I bear the pain of not being able to read the books I got on sale from Cagayan de Oro City -- Less than Php500 for all of these:

 
Doctor Who keeps me company on the very late nights that I force myself to stay up. But it gets more difficult each day, trying to trick myself to do the same amount of crazy work I used to do when I was in my early twenties. There are more important things for me to do now than work. My body knows it. My heart knows it. My spirit knows it. They have all gotten wiser to the tricks I make to make them work too hard or too long.

I bear it all for a chance to be in London.